


bringing home the war

by sequestering



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 1950s, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26110747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequestering/pseuds/sequestering
Summary: They're on the train when Gertrude notices the trembling.Dekker's hands are scarred, thick with blisters, shiny with small burns. They're the hands of a solider. Only these days, they're the hands of the grocer who bags her flour, of the banker who cashes her cheques, of the conductor who waved them onto the train, and of the vicar who sits next to her and shakes.(Gertrude and Adelard are too young for their scars.)
Relationships: Adelard Dekker & Gertrude Robinson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 32





	bringing home the war

**Author's Note:**

> Written for TMA Hurt/Comfort Week organised by [themagnuswriters](https://themagnuswriters.tumblr.com/).
> 
> CW: non-graphic canon-typical Slaughter-related deaths, references to PTSD and war.
> 
> This is now available in [podfic format](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28549272) thanks to the amazingly talented [GodOfLaundryBaskets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics).

Gertrude finds Adelard Dekker in front of Winchester Cathedral.

Even from a distance, he is easy to spot, his cassock a stark black against the broad expanse of slate-grey stone and sky. She knows that he is a well-built man, but alone and swallowed up by the bleached landscape, he looks much smaller.

She walks smartly up to him, her footsteps echoing loudly around the close. "Mr Dekker," she says, holding out her hand.

"Miss Robinson," he says, smiling and taking her hand. "I appreciate your coming out here."

She does not say that she appreciates being asked, that she was surprised he had called, that there are precious few men in their business who accept her advice, let alone actively seek it out. There’s no need to voice that. They are both outsiders in this world, and they both know it. Instead she says, "Your call sounded urgent."

Dekker sighs. It is not rude, rather it is a bone-deep exhaustion ill-suited to a man his age. "A man killed his parents then himself. Did it with a spanner." He adds, "I thought it best you saw the scene for yourself."

Gertrude nods. "The Hunt?"

He pauses for a moment, hesitating. "That's what I thought," he says, expression grim. "But there wasn't any pursuit, no challenge, no chase. It's not like any Hunt I've ever seen."

She waits, but he doesn't seem keen to elaborate. That's alright, she has time. She hums noncommittally and follows as he leads her through the cloisters and out into the city.

-

The house, when they arrive, is unmistakable. It's standard aspirational middle-class, a modest red-brick with a neat lawn and bicycles leaning unlocked against the fence posts. It's also got three police cars surrounding it, arranged to shield the public from view as much as possible.

Dekker strides confidently past the uniformed officers. "Here for the family," he explains lowly, straightening his cassock when they move to stop him. They back off, nodding sympathetically.

It's a good act, and Gertrude is preparing to say as much, when they enter the living room, and the words die in her throat.

Bodies are nothing new to her. Nor are torn-off limbs and bloody tableaux. She skipped past more than she could count as a child, running to school through the smoking ruins of London. Somehow it's different when it's like this: so much bloody brutality, a rage so powerful that it's tangible, bodies not just battered but pounded into a formless pulp.

The perpetrator is a little better, physically incapable of wreaking such damage on himself, but still accomplishing more harm than Gertude would have thought possible. Her stomach turns, and she forces herself not to show it.

"Shell shock," explains the detective attending. He is a hard-faced man, who walks with a limp and a permanent scowl. "Records say he was a POW with the Krauts," he says, face screwed up with disgust and grief and an old exhaustion. "What they did to those boys," he pauses and shakes his head. "Doesn't take a genius to know why he snapped."

It's not the Hunt, but it’s not shell shock either.

-

They find it in the dead man's room, on a disordered bookshelf jammed full of thick volumes: a small red-brown book with a cover made of something that isn't quite leather, embossed with faded Latin lettering.

Gertrude curses and drops it on instinct, feeling the impression of the words even through her gloves.

They both stare at the thin volume, lying incongruously on the woollen carpet. The room does not change in any measurable way; there is no ominous thickening of shadows or dropping of temperature, but there is something, like the world took a step to the left and became that little bit less certain, less safe. Gertrude's skin crawls and she flexes her hand uncomfortably.

Dekker drops to his knees beside the book, picking it up in carefully gloved hands and carrying it over to the dead man's desk.

"Don't open it," Gertrude snaps. She has seen men with far more experience than Dekker doom themselves in a moment of thoughtless excitement.

She needn't have bothered; he barely seems to hear her, too busy tracing the words of the title, _quis carmine caedes diversas_. His dark skin is pale, lips tinged a sickly grey. "That's from Vergil," he says slowly. "Who can sing of such varied slaughters," he recites, with the easy cadence of words long committed to memory. "It's from a battle scene."

And Gertrude knows why Dekker called her. "War rage," she says, feeling the knowledge crawl oil-slick up her throat.

Dekker nods mutely.

"The Slaughter."

He nods again, and now the understanding is choking. She slumps into a chair.

"Indiscriminate killing, random acts of violence" she says quietly. "I suppose, there's nothing about that unique to wartime." A heavy stillness falls, the only sound the muffled ticking of the room's clock. "Foolish, but I had tho—" she breaks off. "I had hoped it couldn't manifest in peacetime."

"That had— that had been my hope too," says Dekker. There's something awful and strangled in his voice, something born far away in a European field to the rattle of gunfire.

It's not exactly a surprise. The Fears have never limited themselves to what is convenient or logic, there's no reason that this should be different, no matter how much she had ached for it to be. It tastes more like the bitterest disappointment, in the world for being as cruel as ever, in herself for thinking it could be otherwise.

Dekker cuts through the silence with a chuckle, humourless and empty, the kind that hurts to hear. "I really thought I'd never see that again," he says, voice cracking horribly. He shakes his head, and his eyes are too bright. "Should have known better."

Gertrude looks away. The moment is too personal, too raw, fresh pink scar tissue splitting to reveal the thick red gore underneath.  
  
-  
  
They leave the house twenty minutes later, the book wrapped in Gertrude's bag and Dekker's cheeks carefully dry. The walk to the station is heavy with the quiet kind of companionship that comes after an event leaves one hollowed - empty of action, of feeling, of words.

They're settled into their compartment, safely on route to London, when she notices the trembling.

Dekker's hands are scarred, thick with blisters, shiny with small burns. They're the hands of a solider. Only these days, they're the hands of the grocer who bags her flour, of the banker who cashes her cheques, of the conductor who waved them onto the train, and of the vicar who sits next to her and shakes.

Later Gertrude will wonder at herself; she is not a soft woman, not easily given to pity or patience. Theirs is a business that disdains weakness, but in the moment Dekker's hands are shaking, and she is barely thinking.

Gertrude reaches across and takes his hand in hers.

Dekker's hand is warm and heavy. Somehow it doesn't surprise her; warm-blooded, warm-hearted Adelard Dekker with his gun-callused hands.

He doesn't react. His head doesn't move from where he's staring out the the window, watching the ugly brick of the suburbs melt into the patchwork fields of Hampshire. But he grips her hand back hard enough it aches.

It's a good ache, though, not the soul-sick ache that comes after too many bloodied bodies, but a warm physical ache that speaks to her living body. They are here, they are alive, and they are together.

They pass the journey in silence. Night settles over the English countryside, the twinkling lights of rural stations rush by, Dekker's trembling comes to a still, and Gertrude holds on tight. Cold winter darkness presses up against the train windows, but inside the compartment they are warm, lit by a flickering gaslight. Gertrude can have this. For now, for a few hours, she can let herself have this.

She lets go when the train pulls, screeching, into Waterloo. They stand, stretching out stiff limbs, waiting as the conductor opens the doors and the frigid air hisses in.

Their silence drags out, thick with something that sits namelessly in Gertrude's throat. "I don't suppose you could be persuaded to make a statement," she asks, layering the words with professionalism and Angus Stacey's clipped vowels.

Dekker looks at her for the first time since their departure from Winchester. He is smiling, sure and solid. "Another time," he says, then sticks out his hand to shake. "Take care of yourself, Miss Robinson."

"Gertrude," she says. The words slip out of their own accord, surprising even herself.

Dekker's smile broadens. "Adelard," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are adored.
> 
> Come say hi on my tma tumblr [thelukasfamily](https://thelukasfamily.tumblr.com/).


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